1861: Railways of the Russian Empire
by Ian Wilson
Published by JKLM Games, Lookout Games, and Z-man Games, 2006

(This is the first review in what I hope to start as a regular series of 18xx game reviews, 18xx: Reviews for the Uninitiated. This particular series of reviews is aimed at the gamer who is contemplating jumping into the 18xx games, but perhaps isn’t sure where to start. As such, these reviews will focus on the rules from a broad perspective, without the strategic detail that would only be useful after several games. Also, these reviews will address the question of whether this game would be a good introduction to the 18xx series. These reviews have been inspired by the multiple recent postings by users asking for a good jumping in point for 18xx, and hopefully they will be of some use in that respect.

For those who more familiar with the 18xx series, I am working on a sister series of reviews, 18xx: Reviews for the Connoisseur. These reviews will focus on the specific rules of this game, mainly in areas where this game differs from the main line of 18xx, as well as focusing on strategic review and placing the game within the genre. This sister series of reviews is loosely based on CortexBomb’s series of AoS expansion reviews, and I thank him for the inspiration.

If you’re already familiar with the general rules of 18xx games, and would like to read the review targeted at 18xx players, or, if after reading this review you want a more in depth look at 1861, please see my review at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/193206. Comments and criticism are always welcome.)

1861 is a competition to be "first against the wall when the revolution comes". Players will take the roles of investors who will control several types of railroad companies, controlling their finances and operations. The game progresses with a sequence of one stock round, followed by two operating rounds. After each operating round, a merger round is conducted. The game end is triggered when a company purchases the first 8 train, and the player with the highest net worth is declared the winner.

Game Overview:

Players in 1861 are investors who will invest their personal funds into railroads. In 1861, there are three types of railroads: private, minor, and public.

Private companies are wholly owned by the player who buys them, and pay a fixed revenue each operating round. These companies can later be bought from the player by a minor or public company, and are closed at a certain point in the game.

Minor companies, like private companies, are also wholly owned by the controlling player. These companies also lay track tiles on the map, and own and operate trains in order to establish revenue, of which half is paid to the controlling player and half goes into the company treasury. Minor companies may later be merged together or converted into public companies.

Public companies are, like the name implies, publicly owned. Like minor companies, they also lay track, own trains, and run these trains to establish revenue during each operating round. All players may buy stock (or “shares”) in these companies. Each public company has 9 stock certificates available; the president’s certificate, worth 20% of the company, and 8 10% shareholder certificates. These certificates are used in several ways. First, the president of the company, and thus the person who decides how the company will operate, is the player with the greatest percentage of shares in that company. Second, if the railroad declares a dividend, each 10% of stock gives the player 10% of the dividend. Third, at the end of the game, the company’s stock adds its current market value to the player’s net worth.

Private Company Auction:

To begin the game, players will auction off the five private companies available to players. In order, players have the chance to choose a private to auction off. These private companies will pay a fixed revenue to the owning player each round until they are either bought by a minor/public company, or are bought by the Russian State Railway and close.

Each private company also has a special power. These powers only apply to a company which owns the private, and therefore cannot directly benefit the player. However, a player may sell his private company (at up to face value) to a minor or public company, which then gains the power printed on the private company. The powers on all five of the private companies in 1861 give a +10 to revenue when that company runs a train to or from a specific city. The two companies which gives +10 to runs to/from Moscow are particularly valuable, and should probably be fought over.

Stock Round:

After the private auction, the first stock round commences. In general, during a stock round, players take turns each selling stock (if they wish), and either buying one stock certificate or auctioning one minor company. Each player can in this way perform many actions during a stock round.

A few rules dictate the purchases that players may make. First, a player cannot hold more than 60% of the stock in a public company. Second, players must purchase the president’s certificate of a company before purchasing any other stock certificates. These rules are quite common to the 18xx games, but in 1861 the latter rule is less important, as public companies are usually not started during the stock round, but rather during the merger round.

The stock market is a 2-D grid which operates quite simply. The square a company’s token is denotes the value of a single share of that company’s stock. The president’s share is worth two shares (20%) of stock. These stock values add to player’s personal wealth at the end of the game, and are the price at which players may sell that stock in a stock round.

Minor companies also have tokens on the stock market, but they may never be sold.

Operating Round:

After each stock round, two operating rounds are conducted. During an operating round, each company performs operations. The order that companies operate is private companies, then minor companies, then public companies. Within each set of companies, the company with the highest current value operates first.

Private companies simply pay their revenue to the owning player or company. This concludes their operations.

Minor companies actions are decided by the owning player. Public companies actions are controlled by the player who owns the largest amount of stock in that company. This player is referred to as the “president”.

Minor and public companies perform the following steps:

-Redeem shares (optional).
-Lay or upgrade one track tile
-Lay or upgrade an additional track tile at the cost of R20 (optional).
-Place a station marker (optional).
-Run trains to establish earnings.
-Pay dividends, half-pay, or withhold revenue.
-Adjust stock price forward one square if total dividend is equal to or greater than the current market value, adjust backwards one square if no dividend or zero dividend is paid.
-Pay loan interest on old loans.
-Redeem loans.
-Buy trains (optional, except when mandatory).

The actions that companies will be performing each and every operating round, with very few exceptions, are laying track tiles, running trains, paying dividends or withholding earnings, and adjusting their shares’ market value.

Companies, minor and public, will lay track tiles in order to establish networks of track that will later be used to run trains on and establish revenue. At the beginning of the game, only yellow track tiles may be laid. These tiles are simple straight and curved track, including cities and towns. Later in the game, these yellow tiles may be upgraded to green tiles, and green tiles to brown. There also exist a few gray tiles, which can upgrade brown city tiles in a few specific locations.

An important point to make here is that there is no concept of track ownership in 1861. Unlike games such as Age of Steam, all players may use all track, without penalty. This allows companies to cooperate with others, be they controlled by the same player or others.

Rather, the only part of the network on the board that can be owned by a company are station markers (sometimes called tokens). When a company places a station marker in a city, marked by a big white circle on a track tile, that city becomes a railhead for the company. A railhead allows that company to use the city as a base of operations for establishing its revenue when it runs trains, and also to potentially block other companies. A company may not run its trains through a city in which all available circles are occupied by other companies’ station markers.

When a company runs its trains, each train may visit a number of cities less than or equal to the number on its trains, which can range from 2 to 8. A legal route for a train must include at least one railhead of the company running the route, and at least one other town, city or off-board location (which are marked in red on the map). There are several other rules governing the running of trains, which are somewhat complex, but the most important remaining rules are that each of a company’s trains must run on separate track for the entirety of their run, and that a single train may not visit the same city, town or off-board location more than once during its run. Common sense rules, such as “no reversing at a junction” also apply, but trains may reverse direction at cities.

Once a company has run its trains, it calculates revenue. Its revenue is equal to the sum of the values printed on each of the cities, towns or red off-board locations that its trains visited. As a general rule of thumb, towns are undesirable stops to make, as they are only worth R10, and cities become progressively more valuable as they are upgraded from yellow, to green, to brown and possibly to grey.

A sidenote here is that a company is required to run its trains for the maximum possible revenue. If a player declares a suboptimal route, his fellow shareholders may point out a higher valued route, if one exists.

Once revenue is calculated, the controlling player decides whether the company will pay out dividends or withhold its earnings. Another option is “half-paying”, which means that the company will withhold half of its earnings, and pay the other half out as a dividend. Minor companies will ALWAYS half-pay, with 50% of their revenue going to the owning player, and 50% to the company. Public companies will pay 10% of the revenue for each 10% of stock that a player owns. In this way, players will often make money off of their opponent’s runs, assuming they had the foresight to buy stock shares that were lucrative.

A large mechanism within 1861’s operating rounds is loans. 50 Ruble loans (R50) are available to companies in order to fund track tile lays, station marker placement, train purchases, and loan interest payments. Each operating round, the company must pay interest of R5 on its loans, including the round in which the loan was taken, and, before buying trains, a company must redeem as many loans as possible for R50 if it can afford to do so.

A company without a train at the end of its operating round must buy one, or else be nationalized. Other than this case, train purchases are optional. In 1861, all trains must be purchased in numerical order. This means that all type 2 trains must be purchased before the first type 3 train is available. The purchase of trains drives events within the game, such as obsolescence of trains and availability of public companies to be started, and allow companies to make longer, and higher valued runs. Starting with the purchase of the first 4 train, all 2 trains are IMMEDIATELY discarded. At this point, they are obsolete. The first 6 train removes the 3 trains, and the first 8 train removes the 4 trains from the game. By this mechanism, players’ companies must always plan ahead in order to have sufficient funds available to buy the next train by the time their current train(s) go obsolete.

Merger Rounds:

Beginning with the operating rounds after the purchase of the first 3 train, merger rounds are conducted after each operating round. In a merger round, a player has several options. He may convert a minor company which has reached a certain point on the stock market into a public company, receiving two shares of the public company. He may also merge two or more of his minor companies into a public company, regardless of their stock price, as long as they have operated at least once. To do this, the minor companies must be connected by track, but may ignore opponents station tokens for the purpose of this rule only. Rarely, a player may merge one of his minor companies with an opponents minor company, assuming both players agree to the merger. If a merger is performed, each minor company that is merged nets the owning player one share of stock in the resulting public company.

There are several reasons why players want to merge their minors into publics, even though it may net them less money in the short run. First, minor companies are subject to a very harsh nationalization rule, which states that, at the time of the purchase of the first 4 and 6 train, the minor company MUST have a train or it is immediately nationalized. Since these train purchases trigger the obsolescence of the 2 and 3 type trains, it can be very difficult to get a minor company with enough money to survive this long. Second, public companies have 3 station markers, while minor companies only have one. This allows them to run for much more revenue than minor companies would. Third, public companies have access to much more capital, made by selling shares, than a minor company does.

The Russian State Railway (RSR) and Nationaliation:

Deserving of its own section in this review, the Russian State Railway is a huge presence in 1861. The RSR is a sort of automaton—it does not have shares that players may own, but in most ways it behaves like a public company. It does not lay track, but each turn it will run all of its trains, withhold revenue, and buy trains from the bank if it can. In this way, it also acts as sort of a clock for the game by driving the purchase of trains.

A player’s private companies, at the beginning of phase 5, are nationalized (bought) by the RSR for face value (and then closed).

A player’s minor companies, if not merged, will usually be nationalized by the RSR at the beginning of phase 4 or 6 (the purchase of the first 4 or 6 train). If any minor companies are still present at time of the purchase of the first 8 train, they are nationalized, even if they have a train. When a company is nationalized, the owner (for minors) or shareholders (for publics) are paid out a reduced rate for their holding, based on the current market value of the stock. The more loans a company has at this time, the less the RSR will pay for it. All of the company assets, including money, station markers, and trains are then given to the RSR.

This mechanism prevents players from ever being forced to buy trains with their own money, as they often are in other 18xx games. It provides a means for at least some compensation if you make a mistake, and having a company or two nationalized should not be viewed as losing the game. Actually, the influx of cash to the player can sometimes be a boon, allowing him to do things that he might not be able to afford, such as starting a public company using only his own money.

End Game:

The game end is usually triggered by the purchase of the first 8-train. If this happens during the first operating round of a set, then the current round is completed, followed by another set of two operating rounds. If it happens during the second round of a set, then three more operating rounds are completed after the current one.

If the bank runs out of money (unlikely), the game ends immediately at the conclusion of the current operating round.

Company stock prices are reduced at the end of the game if the company still has outstanding loans.

Suitability for the Uninitiated:

New players could do much worse for a first 18xx game than 1861. In my mind, it has several things going for it:

-Gentle stock market: Although this aspect was not covered in depth, the stock market of 1861 is fairly stable and reliable. In most other 18xx games, when any player sells stock the stock price is dropped by one row on the table for each share sold. This can be extremely brutal, and can catch unsuspecting new players by surprise. In 1861, the stock price only drops when the president of the company sells shares, and even then drops by only one row, no matter how many shares are sold. A player in 1861 can be relatively sure that his investments will remain sound and aren’t subject to trashing by other players.

-Sense of accomplishment: The buildup from small minor companies to huge public companies is quite fun, and it gives players a sense of actually building something from nothing. The minors also give players a few turns to make sense of running routes and laying track before managing a public company, which may have 3 or 4 trains to manage at once.

-Impossible to go Bankrupt: In most 18xx, bankruptcy awaits the unsuspecting new player. If a company is unable to buy a train, the president of the company must pay for one out of his personal funds. Although this is sometimes done deliberately, the obsolescence of trains will usually leave new players in a bind with no trains and no money to purchase them with. In 1861, although the company will be nationalized into the RSR if it cannot buy a train, the player is at least compensated for his loss. This money can be reinvested in the next stock round, and in no way dooms a player to failure. I think this is the biggest thing that 1861 has to offer the new player.

-Availability: As of this writing, some online stores such as ThoughtHammer still stock 1861. It runs for about $70.00 MSRP.

There are, however, also a few cons to starting your 18xx journey with 1861:

-Game Length: A full game with new players will probably take 6-8 hours. There are definitely shorter 18xx games out there, and if length is a real concern, players may not want to choose 1861. Partial games can be played easily if players choose a predetermined stopping point (either time-wise, or when certain in-game events are triggered).

-Number of choices: For a new player, 1861 can sometimes be overwhelming with the number of choices available to them. This is probably true of most 18xx, and the best advice to overcome this is to just dive in, make a choice, and see how it works out. It may be a horrible failure, but at least you have learned from it and can apply your new knowledge to the next play.

-Price: At $70, 1861 may be a bit pricey to buy if you are unsure of your group’s interest. However, the game maintains its value very well, and had quite a small print run, so you should have no trouble selling or trading it if you decide the game isn’t for you.

Overall, 1861 is a decent introductory game for the new 18xx player. Its minor companies allow players to get used to the running of companies slowly, and on a small scale, before they are tasked with running a large public. Also, the gentle stock market and lack of bankruptcy make it a relatively gentle ride to manage. However, as with most 18xx games, the time required to learn the game is great, and the price of the game may not be as approachable as the state games (18AL, 18GA), which can even be printed from files online. However, the similarity of operating rounds to 1830 and most other 18xx games descended from it is great, and players should have no trouble transitioning from 1861 to other games in the series. Overall, a good game for the uninitiated, although not without some drawbacks.

Rating for the Uninitiated: 7/10

Calculation of routes when you have two or more 5,6,7 trains can be very time consuming, even for veteran player. Have a pen and paper handy and write down the routes for each train. e.g. poland to riga to moscow to kharkov etc. The paper money included with the game is crap- use poker chips if you can get them.

Yep, you're right on these Shane. However, difficulty in route calculation isn't anything unique to 1861, and as you play more 18xx your skills at figuring out optimal routes will improve.

Poker chips are almost a must for playing 18xx in general, and the moderator is even better, but requires the added commitment to learning how to use it.

Poker chips are nice, but after playing for a few hours fatigue still sets in and you still have to do math and calculate your dividends. This is where a spreadsheet shines! Collect company money as it's paid, and have all the players collect all their earnings from the three operating rounds all at once.

At this point, I think a player is just as well off learning the moderator and using it. It requires only slightly more work than using the spreadsheet method, and saves even more time by eliminating all paper in the game, save tiles.

However, the uninitiated to whom this review is aimed will be best served using poker chips. I'm afraid discussions of the moderator and spreadsheets will scare off potential 18xx converts!

Also, it isn't clear to me if the moderator can even be used with 1861. It doesn't appear on the list of games supported on the moderator web site.

A simple paper chart or handheld calculator can solve these fatigue problems.

Philip,

I just finished playing my 2nd 18xx game ever tonight and it was 1861 (first game was 18AL). Your review is on the mark in many, many areas. I like the idea of 18xx reviews for the unitiated with emphasis on answering is this good for the beginner. With that being said, I don't think this would ever be a game that I learn from reading the rules alone and I thank the many patient 18xx players and game explainer John Elbl (Elf_Man).

My FLGS has a very solid 18xx fan base at out Thursday night board game sessions and many of the games look and sound a little intimidating for the German board game fan, me. However, it was a very stormy night, attendance numbers were down and a "beginner friendly" 18xx game was suggested so I bit.

I'm glad I did. I don't think I could play this type of game weekly, but every other month - maybe. The gentle stock market, no possibility of BK and the build up and feeling of accomplishment were all very good aspects. I do suggest to look at your choices and just dive in and go and see how it plays out on your first play. I have some ideas of things I'd like to try on future plays of either this game or just the 18xx genre in general.

A note of minor disagreement as to newbie suitability (but not anything else; on the whole the game seems good)....

While the mid- and late-games are quite friendly as far as 18xx games go (in my limited experience, consisting of a single game of each of half a dozen different titles), there's a huge amount of stuff going on during the initial auction and early stock rounds (when the green minors start to come out). Because the middle- and endgame are so tame, this is where (with perhaps a few exceptions) the course of the game is determined, at least as far as I can tell. As someone who had never played the game before and doesn't have the experience necessary to even estimate the later ramifications of my actions, I found all of the decision-making at the start of the game to be quite daunting.

I don't know if my experience is typical, but I found the early game to be fairly opaque. The smoke mostly cleared when the first 4 came out, and then the 6 coming out seemed to almost entirely settle things, after which we went through the motions until the endgame was triggered. As a newish player, that's the exact opposite of what I want the complexity level to do as the game progresses

While the games with a number of minor companies (I've been exposed to 18EU, 1861, and 18West) are quite interesting, I think I'm going to lean more towards the games where I don't have to juggle three companies in the third set of ORs until I get some more games under my belt.

Cool review, though, and I hope you keep on with the project of reviewing other 18xx titles in this fashion

My group has gone to using poker chips for company revenue and paper money for players' personal funds. It has the advantage that it is impossible to get your own money mixed up with company money be mistake.

Another useful aid is buying a dozen or so knitting stitch counters. These are cheaply available from stores that supply knitting & sewing products (pretty obvious, I guess). They are barrel shaped & fit on the end of a pair of knitting needles. They consist of two dials that have the digits 0-9 on each wheel. They can be used to dial up any number between 00-99. We place them on each company mat to record how much it is doing on its run each turn. It helps when (a) you can't remember what your run was last turn, (b) as a reference point if you add to your run & (c) instant info for prospective shareholders who want to know what your last run earned.

Since most runs will produce a three figure number, we just drop the zero to dial up a run, so that a company doing, say, $320 would be dialed up at 32 - which would be the company dividend.

I also use these on a number of other games requiring ongoing counts for victory points etc. etc.